Last week, Dealroom released its European venture capital report for Q2 2017. It showed a record €5.0 billion raised by European companies, and €5.6 billion when including Israel (download Dealroom’s full 2017 Q2 VC report). The chart below shows that the 50 or so largest rounds (out of more than 750 rounds) already accounted for nearly €3.5 billion in funding. The remaining 700 or so rounds bring the total to €5.0 billion, a record.

Subsequently, other reports came out by other vendors with a very different narrative. KPMG, for instance, released a global analysis of venture funding showing Q2 VC funding at only €3.5 billion in total (PDF) and said:

“A fifth straight quarterly decline in deals volume, however, total VC investment in Europe remained strong as a result of a number of mega-deals. Three $100 million+ deals together accounted for $1 billion in European VC funding, including $502 million to London-based Improbable, $397 million to Berlin-based Auto1 Group, and $100 million to London-based GammaDelta Therapeutics.” (via Business Insider)

The following slide shows Dealroom Data and the KPMG data side-by-side. KPMG data shows the quarterly number of rounds would have roughly halved in the last 3 years, while total funding doubled. This would imply 300% growth of average deal-size. Dealroom data shows a roughly 50% increase in average deal size (which is still very significant).

Interestingly, Q2 was also a record when excluding top-3 or top-10 rounds, as the following chart shows:

Dealroom data does show a decline in the number of rounds but only in the last two (not five) quarters (additional technicality: total of rounds in the last quarters might still go up, as seed rounds are often reported after a successful series-A raise).

The KPMG data has led some to pronounce that the bubble is deflating. How to interpret the Dealroom data then? Dealroom data demonstrates that investors are in fact betting on European tech companies at record pace. The outcome of these bets is to be determined years from now.

Following the release of preliminary Q2 figures on 2 July, the Full European 2017 Q2 venture capital report is now published. The conclusion remains: investors are betting on European tech companies at a record pace, investing €5.6 billion including Israel, or €5.0 billion excluding Israel. This figure excludes lending capital, buyouts, secondary transactions and debt.

Mega-rounds such as Farfetch and Improbable were key drivers behind this trend. However, even without these mega-rounds, this was one of the most active quarters ever by the amount of venture capital invested into European companies:

Over 700 people attended the event, including many prominent investors such as Index Ventures, Hoxton and many others. Read more about the event itself here. Dealroom’s founder Yoram Wijngaarde gave the keynote, titled “Is it morning in European tech?” which is available here:

The App Growth Rank is a composite ranking calculated by Dealroom based on size-adjusted growth in cumulative app installs during the last 6 and 12 months. Each individual company profile (such as Telegram) provides the underlying data used (iOS and Android).

At the bottom of each chart, a link is provided to the relevant Priori Data app page for further information.

Dealroom aggregates various growth signals to identify rising stars, to rank & sort results, and to benchmark peers and competitors. Until now, these growth signals primarily depended on website visitors, social media engagement and funding momentum. Being able to tap into app store data has always been high on our wish-list.

After an initial trial period with Priori Data (with outstanding results), we came away extremely impressed with the team and the data. For Dealroom, this partnership is another big step in overall comprehensiveness and value proposition.

If you would like to learn more about how the combination of this data can assist you, please contact [email protected]

Priori Data’s products give users the ability to track, benchmark, and research the performance of any relevant mobile app or publisher, delivering critical competitive intelligence and market insights.

With modular pricing and unparalleled service, Priori Data builds long-term relationships with the most ambitious companies on their path to mobile market success.

While we are still gathering data, it seems safe to say that, with more than €5.5 billion venture capital raised by European companies, this second quarter of 2017 sets an all-time record. This figure includes Israel, and excludes lending capital, buyouts, secondary transactions and debt (Auto1 Group’s €285m debt raise is excluded).

On Dealroom you can track venture capital trends in real-time. Click the image below (or here) to see the latest Q2 data with underlying rounds (or check out the funding heatmap).

The sharp growth in funding is partly driven by several mega-rounds that some would say don’t fit the traditional definition of venture (but then again, venture is evolving, just like the industries it invests in). However, even without these mega-rounds this was one of the most active quarters ever, as the following slide-deck shows.

Final note: more funding basically means more bets are being placed. The outcome of these bets will become clear in the next 10 years (some much sooner). More funding isn’t necessarily always better (as opposed to, say, GDP, sales or profit, where more is generally better). Because of this, we try (but not always succeed!) to avoid terms like “strong quarter” or “great numbers” when funding is concerned.

Despite all the political upheaval, UK’s tech and venture capital are going stronger than ever in Q2 2017. And it is not just Improbable and Farfetch. A long-tail of smaller rounds all add up, as the below table shows (click on image).

The UK is followed by Germany and France, as the below heatmap shows (click image to open interactive heatmap):

Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius just launched a tech map, powered by Dealroom. Vilnius now becomes part of an extensive network of similarly crowd-sourced and Dealroom-powered tech maps (Amsterdam, StartupDelta, Techstars, the European Commission, …). The map was initiated by Go Vilnius, a public institution.

The Baltics (Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia) are like Europe’s Israel, punching well above their weight as tech hubs as the below chart shows.

Back in April, Dealroom published a preliminary ranking of Europe’s 500 most prominent venture capital investors (see April post). The ranking has already been published by Business Insider, Corriere della Sera, and many others. Feedback and input was received from numerous VCs.

All the received input and feedback from numerous venture capital firms has been reflected. But you can still provide us with info as we will keep updating the ranking regularly.

Below is an FAQ based on the questions we’ve received.

How is the ranking calculated?
The ranking is based on nine different indicators which look at: investment activity, current portfolio size and quality, and (successful) exits. See bottom of this blog post for more detail on the nine indicators.

What is the goal of this ranking?The main goal is to make it easier to see which investors you should consider in various cases such as:
– A founder looking for capital
– An investor looking for co-investors
– A corporate M&A team looking for VC portfolios to explore
– An LP exploring and comparing different funds
A secondary goal is to have a logical way to sort results. Dealroom counts over 6,500 tech investors active in Europe. After sorting by relevance, most circumstances require the dataroom to have a secondary way to sort results.

How can I improve my ranking?Firstly, we need to make sure all data is up to date (check online here). You can contact us or you can register for free, claim your account and add data directly yourself or ask us to update.

Why did you include corporate funds and rankings?We deliberately made the ranking as inclusive as possible, because the lines between investor types are blurring. If anything, angels and corporates are at a disadvantage. The list enables you to filter any way you like: to show investment funds only use this filter.

Our fund is still new, so we are at a disadvantageTrack-record is a key attribute for any investor’s standing in the world. The ranking wouldn’t be complete without measuring it. New funds are inherently at a disadvantage in this respect. However, Dealroom is contemplating another future ranking of first-time funds.

Is the ranking based on Europe only?Emphasis is placed on European investments, activity and performance (see full methodology at the bottom). The location of the investor was not a factor, so the ranking includes many U.S. based investors.

Investor X is a top performing fund. Why is it not ranked higher?
The ranking is not a purely performance-based, but performance does play a big role. Firstly, information on investment returns is highly imperfect. Secondly, while performance is the most important measure for LPs, it is not the only thing that counts for many other stakeholders. For example, Scottish Equity Partners is a fund with an exceptional track-record, but happens to have been less active during the last year and therefore isn’t ranked as prominently as one might expect.

Ranking methodology

The ranking is based on the following nine indicators, each with equal weighting:

Portfolio size in Europe = number of portfolio companies in Europe (incl. Israel), all time

Number of rounds in last 12 months = number of rounds which investor participated in during last 12 months

Deal size in last 12 months (€ millions) = total aggregate size of rounds which investor participated in during last 12 months

Exit score = number of exits relative to total portfolio, all time

Exits number = number of exits, global

Number of exits > €100 millions (total firm value, all time)

Number of exits > €500 millions (total firm value, all time)

Number of portfolio companies valued over €500 millions, all time

Capital efficiency = total € amount of all exits relative to the € amount of capital invested (total of rounds which investor participated in, all time)

All companies on Dealroom.co are ranked and can be filtered by their so called growth rank. The growth rank is based on estimated website visitor growth (we use Alexa and SimilarWeb). Growth is calculated for the last 6 and 12 months, both adjusted for the base the company is growing from.

Estimated website visitor growth is a highly imperfect but still extremely useful real-time growth signal, enabling you to sort and filter companies by estimated traction. We recently made some upgrades to the algorithm resulting in better results.

At Dealroom we strive to provide maximum value to all users, whether you are a founder, angel, VCs, or corporate executive. After reviewing the way people use our product, we made some significant changes to the free version of the product. If you are a free user there is some good news and some bad news, but on the whole we believe this change makes the platform more versatile and accessible across our entire user base.

The “good” news: as a free user, you will now be able use the powerful search & filter functionality (see GIF above). Previously this was a paid feature. This will allow you to find the information you want with less hassle. The “bad” news is that we there is a limit placed on the number of results: up to 10 companies and up to 25 investors.

Faceted search & filter: the easiest way to make detailed searches for high-growth companies and their investors

To use this feature today, go to the keyword bar and start to type or select the tags you want to search with. You can combine any amount of tags, such as the following:

Industry (e.g. “travel”)

Business model (e.g. “marketplace”)

Head office location (e.g. “London” or “United Kingdom”)

Valuation

Revenues

Growth stage

Last funding round

Ownership type

If you would like to exclude any criteria from your search, you can do that too: